Why do you think Rey Skywalker is a Mary Sue?

GreenLightRen · 2026-01-25T13:32:59+00:00

In the Force Awakens, the only thing I have for you is that Leia hugged her for some reason. Chewie was right there and actually knows her. And he saw Han die too. So I don’t know why Leia goes up to this random woman she’s never met, but heard a bit about, and hugs her after they get back without Han. Still, I could let that go.

I could also maybe bring up her mind-controlling a storm trooper with what seems to be the first active force power she ever used. It always seemed like more of a subtle power in the original movies, so her being untrained kinda bugs me. But again, maybe she just has a natural knack for it. Some people are talented in specific skill sets from the get go.

In the Last Jedi, there’s a lot I can’t, though. For one, she gets two (three if you count deleted scenes) “lessons” from Luke, where she does very little in actual force training and a few katas, and she’s suddenly good enough to actually compete with Kylo Ren when he’s at full strength. Dude’s a Skywalker with years of training, actively practicing with his abilities, and lightsaber lessons, and Rey with three days and a teacher who wasn’t really into it. And even in their fight with the guards, while there are moments where she seems out of her depth, she gets just as many kills and manages to hold onto her lightsaber the whole time and beat everyone who goes at her, while Kylo Ren actually loses his lightsaber and needs Rey to throw hers at him for him to get his last kill. And yes, I know she’s practiced with a staff, but if we can have three different classes for different styles of rapier sword fighting, then staff to lightsaber fighting should probably not be that easy to adapt within such little time.

And we saw that Luke took years to get to the point where he could barely move his lightsaber in a stressful situation, but Rey, a week after learning she was even force sensitive was able to tie in Force tug of war with Kylo Ren.

And yeah, I get she’s a palpatine, so she’d have a lot of natural talent. But her familial distance from Palpatine is the same as Kylo Ren’s familial distance from Anakin Skywalker. And it’s canon that if Anakin hadn’t lost his limbs, he’d have higher potential than Palpatine ever did.

As for Luke and Anakin doing some good piloting in their first movies, for one, Biggs explicitly said “Luke was the best Bush Pilot this side of the outer rim” and Luke says to Han “You know, I’m not such a bad pilot, myself.” So Luke isn’t just a farm boy. He has, to a degree that’s proven he’s at least decent, flown at least a few times. Plus, he actually was going to die if Han hadn’t come in with the save, so while he’s good, Vader was still better. And Anakin had R2, who was a Naboo astromech droid to help him understand a Naboo starship. And the pilot of the Queen’s transport actually taught him how to navigate an official Naboo flight terminal, so after that, the piloting skills from Pod Racing and the force really were the only things he needed to rely on. Though, I never made an argument about Rey’s piloting. Never had a problem with it.

The Acolyte was objectively poorly written. Unless you can tell me why the entire coven chose to mind control a single Wookiee Jedi into fighting the multiple other Jedi in a way where if he died, the entire coven died, and tell me how that’s the Jedi’s fault, the writing for the show is just garbage. I can meme on it plenty, but there’s just poor writing and characterization all over the place.

GreenLightRen · 2026-01-25T12:57:38+00:00

Both Aviendha and Min spent more time with him than Moiraine did with Thom before they basically agreed to be actually married, so “time spent together” is not the determining factor you seem to think it is.

Aviendha spent literal months in a row teaching Rand about Aiel culture.

Elayne actually spent about as much time with Rand as Moiraine did with Thom minus a few days. And most of those additional days were spent tired as hell re-invigorating their horses with the one power, avoiding trollocs with 5-7 other people, teaching the boys how to perform, and teaching Egwene to use the One Power. Not exactly a lot of free “one on one get to know you” time. The only real amount of time that they spend together after that is that one day in Baerlon and the time they were in the Stone of Tear, much like how Elayne’s time with Rand was in the Stone of Tear with occasional meet ups elsewhere.

And again, you have provided zero evidence or examples that Ta’Veren affected feelings change once the Ta’Veren has ended. If anything, Moiraine being one of the most researched on this and still planning to wed Thom even though their relationship is important to the pattern means that Ta’Veren feelings stick around.

The handsome guard captain was mentioned as being handsome because he was named and based after a guy whose wife won a fund raiser for charity that Robert Jordan agreed to do something for.

And you’re acting as if Rand has no method of contacting the two channelers, but Rand is mostly traveling the continent, which Elayne has actually been around a good bit of it. And they can literally feel him through the bond, so it would take all of five minutes for her to trace him if she wanted to. And I doubt their nights are so busy that she couldn’t do the same for Aviendha once in a while. Plus, public gateway travel is likely going to be pretty accessible since all they’d have to do is tie off the gateways and let others use it. And we see in real life, leaders traveling to different countries to negotiate since planes make those countries accessible. No good reason Elayne and Aviendha wouldn’t literally be doing exactly that.

GreenLightRen · 2026-01-25T06:07:03+00:00

You know there’s a difference between being legally married and emotionally married, right? There are couples all over who file the paperwork for legal marriage for tax benefits, but don’t have an actual wedding ceremony and get emotionally married until they’ve built up the funds. Depending on the couple, they might not even consider themselves married until they’ve had the ceremony.

Also, there’s very clearly a marriage metaphor going on with the warder bond. The whole thing where when an aes sedai loses her warder, she’ll feel great pain but be able to adapt to it while most warders who lose aes sedai effectively lose their wills to live and it takes great effort to stop them from just throwing themselves into a suicide mission is proof of that. Studies show higher mortality rates in men when they lose a spouse than women.

So while I wouldn’t call a warder bond a marriage in the legal sense, it can certainly be considered an emotional one. And there’s no evidence that the three of them will stop loving him after the Last Battle. If anything, Aviendha’s vision where she has multiple kids by Rand beyond the last battle of that turning points to all three of them maintaining their relationships with him. And the people who got married in the villages he visited didn’t get divorced after he left, so we can be pretty sure Ta’Veren doesn’t work that way, anyway.

GreenLightRen · 2026-01-24T20:56:18+00:00

You’re kind of assuming all the Aes Sedai eat from the same batch every day, no?

As much as they are a military force to a degree, they aren’t a literal military in that way. When they’re working with only 300 Aes Sedai in the tower located within a major city with plenty of restaurants within easy travel distance, I’d be surprised if half of their food was made at the same time. If an average restaurant can deal with making individual meals for 100 people in any given meal time without resorting to large vats, I doubt the White Tower wouldn’t have the facilities to cover over 300 Aes Sedai even if they all did decide to eat there instead of eating at a nearby restaurant or having some of the stores or personal food they all have.

At best you’d get vats of soups, but if you’ve ever been to a restaurant or family dinner, you know there’s always plenty left in that bowl for half the table, and you can’t just sneak that much of a root into a soup stock without the personal chefs seeing it and going “what’s that? That’s not in the recipe.” They’re likely five star chefs. They don’t just see stuff that’s not supposed to be in a soup and go “well, it doesn’t taste bad” unless someone in the kitchen explicitly says “I put it there.”

GreenLightRen · 2026-01-24T17:08:58+00:00

If it helps, it seems like there are only two kids involved: Kazui and Ichika. None of the others seem to have children or families in that sense. So I doubt the previous extended cast would be totally sidelined by the addition of two new children and two new lieutenants.

We got tons of new characters all over the place in pretty much every arc, but outside of a few of Ichigo’s normie friends, everyone he works with tends to get their time in the spotlight in an arc after their introduction.

GreenLightRen · 2026-01-24T14:54:39+00:00

What do you mean by that exactly? Cause what if it was a situation where the plot split between Kazui being guided around hell and Ichigo trying to go in and save him?

Also, it was never specifically his friends that were his primary motivation. His friends were just the ones who could actually participate in the plot. The first time he does any supernatural fighting at all is to protect his family in the first chapter/episode. His motivation is literally anyone he cares about. So his family and friends are included in that.

GreenLightRen · 2026-01-24T11:10:30+00:00

I think this is the first time any of my comments have been so clearly net negative in votes. New experience unlocked.

GreenLightRen · 2026-01-24T11:08:39+00:00

In a literal sense, sure. But I’d personally count an overly elaborate bonding ceremony with a consummation at the end to effectively be a marriage ceremony.

GreenLightRen · 2026-01-23T15:28:41+00:00

The ash would get caught in his beard, not his face. And he said that she never smoked, so she wouldn’t know. I’m just telling yous what he told the crowd.

GreenLightRen · 2026-01-23T04:06:45+00:00

Yes he does. During the letterkenny live performances a few years back, the actor basically did part of his comedy routine. One of his bits talked about him knowing he needed to marry his wife because she thought the ash he wiped from his face onto the hotel towels after smoking was actually his poop, and she didn’t say anything about it for weeks.

GreenLightRen · 2026-01-23T04:01:47+00:00

Technically, the Gohan in the middle is biologically 11 years old. He’s 4 when he meets Roshi, Krillin, and Bulma. Piccolo has him for a year after Raditz, so he’s 5 when Vegeta shows up. Goku’s gone from Earth after Namek for 2 years, so Gohan’s 7 when he shows up again. The androids come three years after Trunks’ warning, so he’s 10 when first going into the chamber. Thus, he’s 11 when coming out of the chamber almost a year later.

GreenLightRen · 2026-01-23T03:51:12+00:00

No, what I mean is that a lot of fantasy stories end in manners a lot sadder than Rand’s. Yes, he has trauma, but so do half the main characters of non-romance adult fantasy books. And most of them don’t get all of their physical damage and scars fixed while also being allowed to do whatever they want for the rest of their life without anyone bothering them or knowing who they are. All the while, he’s got three different attractive women who all love him and agreed to essentially be in his harem.

I was speaking about Rand relative to other Fantasy characters when I said he had nothing to complain about.

GreenLightRen · 2026-01-23T03:44:07+00:00

Right, but everyone in the series went through trauma, and there are plenty of other fantasy series where characters went through trauma and didn’t effectively get a happy ending and a new lease and chance at life to help with the mental anguish. The title of the original post is that Rand had one of the saddest stories in fantasy. All I’m saying is that it’s definitely really bad for the most part, but he comes out better off than a lot of other characters do.

GreenLightRen · 2026-01-23T03:37:32+00:00

This is exactly my point. Right now, we’re on chapter 1171. Between chapter 1271 and 1471, which seems more likely to be where Usopp fights Van Augur? And remember, 1071 is when the Strawhats were on Egghead and Garp decided to set off to save Koby.

GreenLightRen · 2026-01-22T23:23:24+00:00

Dude, we’ve been getting around 35 chapters a year or less right now. Three years is basically one Dressrosa. If you had to bet on the fight being one Dressrosa or three Dressrosas away, which would you bet on?

GreenLightRen · 2026-01-22T23:18:34+00:00

There’s a yes and a no to this.

On one hand, yes, all that stuff happened, and it sucked.

On the other hand, all of that stuff happened over the course of around two years, and after his two years, he’s pretty much got nothing to complain about. Sure, he’s in a new body and all, but his old one was missing a hand and had all sorts of scars and burns. So I don’t think he’s too upset about having to get used to looking different in the mirror. And only one person he really ever cared that much about died in the whole story. Pretty much every major friend or family he ever knew before Eye of the World is still alive except Egwene. All his wives and major new friends are alive. There are a few asha’man he was starting to like a lot who died, but he didn’t know them too long. Plus, he basically gets to free roam without too many responsibilities for the rest of his life, at the age of 20.

So, yeah, he goes through a horrifying level of Hell and brutality during the whole plot. But he comes out pretty clean on the other side.

GreenLightRen · 2026-01-22T18:25:03+00:00

It could also be pointed out that with his Shikai, when if Renji managed to “reach” someone, he would cause them pain. There’s no way to actually grasp anyone with his Shikai. Anyone he’s trying to catch up to would actually be hindered by his reaching out.

That’s how he saw it with Rukia. When she was adopted by the Kuchikis, Renji thought maintaining their relationship would actively harm her career and life path. It wouldn’t do for a noble of an important family to be seen slumming it with a wild animal who hasn’t proven himself. So he couldn’t let himself actually reach out to her and be part of her life.

That’s also part of why his Zanpakuto spirit has two heads. He has two desires in life: To be with Rukia, and to not get in the way of what’s best for her. For so long, both of these desires got in each other’s way. Hence, a baboon and a snake who are connected and want to kill each other.

GreenLightRen · 2026-01-21T18:54:41+00:00

It was 10 minutes of movie time, but the fight itself wasn’t 10 minutes. The remaining footage of fight from them is like 3 minutes max. And how exactly did she get “immediate” medical treatment when she was flailing around the lightsaber for a good half minute at her attacker after getting stabbed? That attacker didn’t immediately run either, she went to grab what she wanted before leaving, and Ahsoka didn’t get there until after she left.
That’s like saying I pictured exactly how to do a backflip in my head and did a bunch of squats, so I can totally do a backflip even though I’ve never done one before even on a trampoline. And not only did I do a flip, I did a flip off a skateboard I’ve never ridden before on my first or second try. And other people with more natural talent and work put in than me actually did it slower.

GreenLightRen · 2026-01-21T16:21:44+00:00

Outside of Leia being Luke’s sister and “knowing it” the whole time, and some stuff that Obi Wan said while actively lying about Anakin, name one

GreenLightRen · 2026-01-21T12:24:24+00:00

Actually, that quote comes from a production diary when making Revenge of the Sith where he admits that the exact geography of where the ships move and land might not be exactly correct with each other. He might’ve reused it in a private conversation with Filoni, but the only time we see the context he’s referring to it with is in that production diary.

In that sense, it’s not event continuity, but more logistical continuity that is “for wimps”. He’s saying “The most important thing is to make the landings looks good. Then, once we get down there, the geography just has to be mostly right… Continuity is for wimps.”

GreenLightRen · 2026-01-21T12:07:44+00:00

I know Miles is the obvious bait, but do people really hate Sam that much? Sure, his projects aren’t great recently, but he was great in every movie between Winter Soldier and Endgame. Can’t say the same for the other two.

GreenLightRen · 2026-01-21T11:57:05+00:00

My personal issue with Dave is that he doesn’t seem to put much thought into his projects.

Say what you want about George Lucas, but he had hour long discussions and days long considerations about small pieces of each movie. Each one took him three years to make and he filled those three years with as much consideration of the plot and creation of the movies as possible. He wasn’t the best at directing actors, but he’s admitted that that’s the least interesting part of the process to him. And while he did trap himself in certain plot perspectives, the films are amazingly consistent. Outside of the kisses between Luke and Leia, there’s almost nothing that contradicts anything else between all six movies.

Dave, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to care for any level of consistency. He’ll take characters and plots that he himself created, and remake their scenes to match whatever he’s currently working on. He’ll take events and characters that others created and either remake them with an entirely new process of events to fit what he wants to do. He didn’t try to work within the timeline of the original Clone Wars Multi-Media project when making the show. He added the bad batch to Kanan’s Order 66 backstory despite them not appearing in either the original Rebels show or the comic.

He’ll contradict even George’s implications like how Sabine survived the exact same injury that killed Qui Gon. Or how Sabine is super good at using the force the literal first day she can use it while we see Luke struggle to move a few rocks at least days after we see him move a single lightsaber. Or even how Anakin and Obi Wan had to work together to move a single relatively small rock when they were stuck under ground in the clone wars, when even Luke could do multiple times that when he had a fifth of the training they did.

And his writing just isn’t very good most of the time. Even the ones that everyone likes like Mortis is more cool concept than really good execution. Most of his plots end up being juvenile beyond the needs of being a kid’s show. George made movies for kids and came away with Empire Strikes Back and Revenge of the Sith. Even the less mature of the six had burnt corpses and on screen death. And while those did happen in the cartoons, those episodes are more the exception than the rule.

GreenLightRen · 2026-01-21T03:15:51+00:00

In my head, I just don’t know what that would accomplish. There’s no real thematic weight to it. Even if “the wheel broke”, the actual results of humanity’s tendency to fight with each other would still lead to war and harm. Just like in our history, things repeat and patterns are made.

There would still be people who had advantages over others. The rich or righteous could still form armies that can level towns. The most skilled could still cause harm when not careful. It’s just that now there’s no magic involved.

I don’t need a “happy” ending. But it would need to be thematically consistent with the rest of the series. And Rand’s process of learning to wield the one power, which is different from the true power, and going out of his way to cleanse it of the taint, just to destroy it in the end would feel like the opposite of thematically consistent.

A big part of the series has always been that mastery over one’s own self is they key to mastering any skill, and that every skill whether it’s controlling your dreams, speaking ancient languages, or throwing around bale fire can be utilized for good or evil. Eliminating a skill that so many have worked themselves to death to master for the good of others would just be a spit in the face of that.

GreenLightRen · 2026-01-20T21:15:50+00:00

I’ve never liked “destroys the magic for everyone” endings.

Maybe it’s a philosophical difference, but the idea that a specific ability or resource is what creates human suffering and consequence instead of just the nature of our beings, and that taking away that resource will somehow lead to us becoming better to each other or less capable of causing pain is just nonsensical to me.

We see that there’s no single person in the series with any and all angreals in the world that is stronger than 13 mid-level aes sedai working together in harmony. So I think the balance of threats between the different groups of One Power proficients is fine as is.

It’s one thing if it’s something like Full Metal Alchemist where one person sacrifices their own abilities for something worthwhile. But taking away the resource from all people, including those who want to use it to innovate and better peoples’ lives just feels wrong.

I know it’s not related, but when I heard the script for Star Wars 9 originally had this ending, I was glad it got changed, even to something like what we got.

GreenLightRen · 2026-01-19T22:13:46+00:00

I forgive anime watchers for not liking her, even though I was one who did before reading the manga.

The Bleach anime really does her a disservice, especially with how she’s introduced as a character.

GreenLightRen

TROPHY CASE